Latest news with #Mattis
Business Insider
14 hours ago
- Politics
- Business Insider
US Navy warships are training to survive the naval nightmares that wrecked Russia's Black Sea Fleet
Amid rapid changes in naval warfare, a ship today could find itself suddenly facing a swarm of small, fast, uncrewed vessels ready to strike hard right at the waterline — a potentially critical hit. With this growing threat in mind, the US Navy is training warships to defend against attacks by hostile drone boats. Navy leadership is closely watching how drones are shaping the conflict in Ukraine and studying how it can integrate uncrewed systems into the traditional fleet for future operations. Drone boats, specifically, are dangerous and innovative weapons that Ukraine used to inflict pain on Russia's fleet in the Black Sea. Top commanders see the offensive potential, as well as the need to be ready to defend against them. "These asymmetric capabilities can be used against us, too," Rear Adm. Michael Mattis, commander of the Navy's Task Force 66, told Business Insider in a recent interview. Asymmetric warfare refers to employing cheap weapons en masse against expensive enemy targets. Last month, the Navy participated in multiple training exercises aimed at preparing warship crews for the kind of threats they could face in future conflicts, simulating drone boat attacks on US warships. It exposed crews to an emerging threat with devastating potential. Mattis serves as the director of strategic effects for US Naval Forces Europe-Africa, which launched Task Force 66 last year to merge robotic and autonomous systems into fleet operations. The initiative underscores the Navy's efforts to operate drones alongside conventional crewed naval combat platforms as it explores innovative and asymmetric warfighting tactics. In the Black Sea, Ukraine has demonstrated to the US and its NATO allies the dangers of ignoring these capabilities. At the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, the Ukrainians didn't have much of a navy to project maritime power, so Kyiv leaned into asymmetric warfare and relied on a campaign of missile strikes and attacks with domestically produced naval drones to wreak havoc on Moscow's Black Sea Fleet. Ukraine's operations damaged or destroyed dozens of Russian warships and forced Moscow to relocate the bulk of its fleet from its long-held headquarters in the occupied Crimean peninsula to the port of Novorossiysk in the eastern part of the Black Sea. Mattis said that the Ukrainian campaign has seen Kyiv defeat around 40% of the Russian naval force in the Black Sea. But it has also highlighted what he described as an action, reaction, and counteraction cycle of innovation on the battlefield, where one side fields a capability, the other side fields a counter-capability, and then the first side fields a counter to that counter. Russia, for example, found it difficult to stop Ukraine's naval drone attacks with warship defenses alone, so it responded by increasing its combat patrol aircraft presence to better monitor the Black Sea. Ukraine reacted to this development by outfitting its naval drones with surface-to-air missiles, which have already shot down Russian fighter jets and helicopters. Despite being able to generate significant combat power in the air, Russia's naval forces have been relatively constrained to Novorossiysk. Its limited operations suggest that Moscow is either unwilling or unable to project power in the Black Sea and can't achieve its objectives to control the waterway, Mattis said. "Ukraine has been incredibly successful in achieving strategic effects in the Black Sea and essentially leveraging their asymmetry against the Russians," he said. 'No ideal tactic' The Navy watched this asymmetric warfare cycle unfold in the Black Sea and realized the pressing need to reduce it down to its most basic form in a "red-versus-blue" training scenario. "We want to put our ships into a defensive area where they have to think and react to this problem set," Mattis said, sharing that most have done training in this, but not a lot. "We know that this is an evolving capability," he said. "We know that the Russians were slow to adapt defensive measures against it, and as a result, they lost more ships than perhaps they should have, had they been able to adapt faster." During a recent exercise called Baltic Operations 2025, Task Force 66 used uncrewed surface vessels to simulate attacks on two Navy ships: the command and control vessel USS Mount Whitney and the guided-missile destroyer USS Paul Ignatius. The task force deployed a naval drone called the Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft and other systems for the exercise. This system, made by the US company BlackSea Technologies, resembles a small speedboat and can sprint up to 40 knots, or 46 mph. Mattis said that the goal was to put the ships in a situation where they had to react on an uncomfortably short timeline. In some of the training scenarios, operators would have a drone tail one of the larger vessels and then suddenly sprint out from behind it, forcing it to react. In other situations, multiple drone boats attacked from different angles. One of the challenges with naval drones is that they are small, making them more difficult to detect and differentiate from various commercial boats. When operating in a normal routine, like in port, the watch team might not be able to identify the threat before tragedy struck. Mattis said the exercise took place at the basic level, with the purpose of creating what he described as a dilemma. He said this specific exercise was designed so sailors could understand the operating characteristics of the fast and agile naval drones, which can appear almost undetected out of nowhere and quickly swarm a vessel. There were no live-fire engagements during the training exercise, meaning the ships didn't shoot at the drone boats. However, the Navy does train for that. At a different European exercise held in May, sailors on the destroyer USS Thomas Hudner practiced using the warship's guns to defend against a naval drone attack. Task Force 66 is experimenting with some more advanced tactics and aims to eventually build more complex training scenarios, which Mattis said will likely resemble a "free play" mode, where participants learn how to operate and react on the fly rather than via scripted runs designed for safety and repeatability. "Going back to the fundamentals, because of this iterative nature and innovative nature of this changing character of war with drones, what we're seeing is that there's no ideal tactic, there's no ideal capability," Mattis said, explaining that "there's only a combination of tactics and capabilities that have to change over time to continue to generate dilemmas and surprise for the adversary to be ultimately defeated." 'Innovate to survive' The naval drone exercises last month are just one way Task Force 66 is taking key lessons learned from the Ukraine war and applying them in training scenarios. It is also trying to see how it can replicate some of the low-cost, high-return effects that it has observed in the Black Sea and apply them in other theaters, like the contested Indo-Pacific region. Navy leadership is increasingly preparing for the rise of artificial intelligence, drones, autonomous systems, and other emerging technologies in future conflicts, but Mattis acknowledged that one of the challenges of addressing the changing nature of warfare — fast enough to keep up with the speed of adaptation — is figuring out how to do it when you're not facing an existential threat. He explained that "when someone pushes a gun in your face, as Russia did with Ukraine, and you are forced to innovate to survive — when it is absolutely 'figure it out or die' — the ability to get after problem-solving and the ability to remove barriers and eliminate excuses is incredible." "We've seen our Ukrainian partners do that in ways that are incredibly inspiring," he said. The US Navy isn't in that kind of fight, but it realizes it needs to be ready for one.
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Korea Herald
3 days ago
- Politics
- Korea Herald
[Lee Kyong-hee] Recalibrate moves for peace in Korea
One day in late 2017, after work at the Pentagon, then-US Secretary of Defense James Mattis quietly slipped into the National Cathedral in Washington. Mattis directed his security detail to allow him to enter alone so he could pray and reflect. 'What do you do if you've got to do it?' Mattis asked himself. 'You're going to incinerate a couple million people.' He had been in enough wars to know what one on the Korean Peninsula would entail. Now the question for him was how to fulfill his duty knowing his decisions might have epic consequences. President Donald Trump's maximum pressure on North Korea included not only draconian economic sanctions but verbal assaults against Kim Jong-un, including 'fire and fury' and 'nuclear obliteration.' Only the president could authorize the use of nuclear weapons, but Mattis believed the decision would rest on his recommendation. By then, the North Korean leader possessed, for the first time, both nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles that could carry a nuclear warhead to the US homeland. Kim had been launching missiles at an alarming rate during the first year of Trump's presidency, including an unprecedented ICBM on July 4. The North conducted its sixth nuclear test -- its most recent one to date -- two months later. In his 2020 book, 'Rage,' Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward describes Mattis returning to the cathedral several more times that year 'to find peace before the moment came.' Woodward writes that, when he walked out of his last visit, Mattis had cleared the decks: 'I'm ready to go to work. I'm not going to think any more about the human tragedy.' Fortunately, things soon transpired in an entirely unexpected way. Kim offered to participate in the Winter Olympics to be hosted by South Korea in February 2018, setting off a whirlwind of cross-border exchanges, which would culminate in the first-ever summit talks between the United States and North Korea. In the past six years — from the 'no deal' in Hanoi in February 2019 to Trump's return to the White House for his second term earlier this year — the geopolitical matrix surrounding this peninsula has become tremendously more complicated. Inter-Korean relations as well as ties between Washington and Pyongyang have hit rock bottom. North Korea has noticeably strengthened its position with its renewed partnership with Russia, while the intensifying rivalry between the US and China is fundamentally rocking the global order. Against this volatile backdrop of international politics, it is with much interest — no doubt with caution as well — that one observes the North's unusual response to recent events that carry far-reaching significance. Amid the chaotic government turnover in the South and the US airstrikes on Iran's three key nuclear facilities, Pyongyang has responded with rarely seen restraint and composure. In the unstable wake of the US strikes in Iran, the North Korean Foreign Ministry expressed its serious concern and denounced the US government for violating Iran's territorial integrity and the United Nations Charter, but did not mention support for Tehran. The response is unexpected given Pyongyang's decadeslong friendly relationship with Tehran. The two countries are widely suspected of sharing weapons technology and underground construction know-how. It can be assumed that Kim Jong-un fears the US capability to carry out precision strikes using bunker-buster bombs. It can also be conjectured that Trump's unilateral action has only hardened Kim's determination to further accelerate his nuclear program and deepened his mistrust of Trump's North Korea policy. But it is too early to discern Kim's total calculus of the Middle East while developments in the region remain fluid. No less important, the North has shown reasonable prudence in responding to events in the South. Even when former President Yoon Suk Yeol and his defense chief were accused of trying to provoke the North into a military response to justify martial law, the North remained silent. In the past, such an allegation would have likely triggered bombastic rhetoric and threats. President Lee Jae-myung has quickly changed the political climate just weeks into his tenure. His picks for key Cabinet posts handling inter-Korean affairs send an explicit message. Chung Dong-young, the unification minister nominee, and Lee Jong-seok, now head of the National Intelligence Service, are known for their pro-detente activities under previous liberal administrations and have expressed commitments to inducing a thaw. Experience tells us that a breakthrough with the North should be cloaked in cautious optimism. We can expect Lee's pursuit of peace will continue. Ideally, Kim should respond and take the path to economic development to save the North Korean population from dire poverty — and keep a nuclear nightmare on the Korean Peninsula at bay. The X factor may be the US. Trump makes no secret of his desire for the Nobel Peace Prize. After taking an outsized role in the Middle East, perhaps he will reengage on the Korean Peninsula, where he often claims he prevented a major war. That could mean an unreliable partner for the Lee administration. Trump likes the spotlight on him alone and insists on setting terms. Trump's overture to Kim signifies a rare window of opportunity, but with risks of uncertainty. That burden will fall on Lee, who will have to take cautious steps — one at a time — resolutely and steadfastly toward peace.
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Fact Check: James Mattis' statement allegedly condemning Trump's actions during 2025 LA protests published 5 years earlier
Claim: Former U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis wrote a statement titled 'In Union There Is Strength' in which he condemned President Donald Trump's actions regarding the 2025 immigration protests in Los Angeles. Rating: What's True: Mattis truly authored such a statement. However... What's False: He didn't write it in 2025, nor did it have to do with immigration protests. Mattis wrote it five years earlier in response to Trump's actions during the George Floyd protests of June 2020. A rumor that circulated online in June 2025 claimed former U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis, a retired four-star Marine Corps general, released a statement condemning President Donald Trump for his actions during ongoing immigration protests in Los Angeles. The statement, titled "In Union There Is Strength," began, "I have watched this week's unfolding events, angry and appalled." It praised protesters for uniting and "unifying," and expressed opposition to Trump's call for deploying military force against people exercising their right to make their voices heard. For example, on June 10, the manager of a Facebook page posted (archived), "Former Defense Secretary and retired Marine Corps General James Mattis has released a statement about Trump's military coup." The post, displaying the statement and a photo of Mattis, received over 103,000 reactions and 59,000 shares in less than 24 hours. Other (archived) users (archived) copied and pasted similar text alongside pictures of Mattis on (archived) Bluesky, Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived), Reddit (archived), Threads (archived) and X (archived). Snopes readers also emailed to ask about the matter, for example, with one person inquiring, "Is the recent statement from General Mattis about unifying true or false?" (Feminist News/Facebook) Mattis truly authored the statement that condemned Trump's response to protesters, but he published it in June 2020 — not June 2025 — and was referring to Trump's actions regarding protests over the death of George Floyd. Floyd, a Black man, died on May 25, 2020, while in the custody of white police officers in Minneapolis. At the time, Trump threatened to deploy military force to combat violent protests if state and local officials declined to make use of active-duty troops. One particularly striking moment concerned the use of tear gas and flash-bangs against a largely peaceful gathering in Washington, after which Trump walked from the White House to St. John's Church, where he held up a Bible and posed for photos. Some (archived) users (archived) who posted in 2025 acknowledged Mattis' statement was five years old but argued it still applied to the more recent events, namely the Trump administration's deployment of more than 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines to provide security at immigration protests and operations in Los Angeles. California Gov. Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass both opposed the federal intervention. As of this writing, The Associated Press reported the usage of about 2,000 of the National Guard troops in L.A., while Marines resided at a nearby base. Snopes contacted Mattis by email to ask if he wished to comment on the immigration protests in L.A., and whether he believed his June 2020 statement was relevant to the events taking place in June 2025. We will update this story if we learn more. The Atlantic (archived), The New York Times (archived) and NPR (archived) host the full text of Mattis' "In Union There Is Strength." His statement from June 2020 reads: IN UNION THERE IS STRENGTH I have watched this week's unfolding events, angry and appalled. The words "Equal Justice Under Law" are carved in the pediment of the United States Supreme Court. This is precisely what protesters are rightly demanding. It is a wholesome and unifying demand — one that all of us should be able to get behind. We must not be distracted by a small number of lawbreakers. The protests are defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values — our values as people and our values as a nation. When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens — much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside. We must reject any thinking of our cities as a "battlespace" that our uniformed military is called upon to "dominate." At home, we should use our military only when requested to do so, on very rare occasions, by state governors. Militarizing our response, as we witnessed in Washington, D.C., sets up a conflict — a false conflict — between the military and civilian society. It erodes the moral ground that ensures a trusted bond between men and women in uniform and the society they are sworn to protect, and of which they themselves are a part. Keeping public order rests with civilian state and local leaders who best understand their communities and are answerable to them. James Madison wrote in Federalist 14 that "America united with a handful of troops, or without a single soldier, exhibits a more forbidding posture to foreign ambition than America disunited, with a hundred thousand veterans ready for combat." We do not need to militarize our response to protests. We need to unite around a common purpose. And it starts by guaranteeing that all of us are equal before the law. Instructions given by the military departments to our troops before the Normandy invasion reminded soldiers that "The Nazi slogan for destroying us ... was 'Divide and Conquer.' Our American answer is 'In Union there is Strength.'" We must summon that unity to surmount this crisis — confident that we are better than our politics. Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people — does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to our children. We can come through this trying time stronger, and with a renewed sense of purpose and respect for one another. The pandemic has shown us that it is not only our troops who are willing to offer the ultimate sacrifice for the safety of the community. Americans in hospitals, grocery stores, post offices, and elsewhere have put their lives on the line in order to serve their fellow citizens and their country. We know that we are better than the abuse of executive authority that we witnessed in Lafayette Square. We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution. At the same time, we must remember Lincoln's "better angels," and listen to them, as we work to unite. Only by adopting a new path — which means, in truth, returning to the original path of our founding ideals — will we again be a country admired and respected at home and abroad. For further reading, Snopes reported the facts about Trump's deployment of military force for the June 2025 LA protests. Baldor, Lolita C., and Tara Copp. "Hegseth Defends Use of Troops to Protect Immigration Raids in Los Angeles." The Associated Press, 11 June 2025, Blood, Michael R. "California Governor Says 'democracy Is under Assault' by Trump as Feds Intervene in LA Protests." The Associated Press, 11 June 2025, Colvin, Jill, and Darlene Superville. "Tear Gas, Threats for Protesters before Trump Visits Church." The Associated Press, 2 June 2020, Gjelten, Tom. "Peaceful Protesters Tear-Gassed To Clear Way For Trump Church Photo-Op." NPR, 1 June 2020. NPR, Goldberg, Jeffrey. "James Mattis Denounces President Trump, Describes Him as a Threat to the Constitution." The Atlantic, 3 June 2020, Izzo, Jack. "Marjorie Taylor Greene Latest Public Figure to Falsely Claim George Floyd Died of a Drug Overdose." Snopes, 17 May 2025, LaMagdeleine, Izz Scott. "20 Rumors Involving George Floyd to Mark 5th Anniversary of Murder." Snopes, 25 May 2025, Mattis, James. In Union There Is Strength. The New York Times, NPR Staff. "READ: The Full Statement From Jim Mattis." NPR, 4 June 2020. NPR, Ray, Michael. "James Mattis | Facts, Biography, & Secretary of Defense | Britannica." Britannica, Seligman, Lara. "In Crisis Mode, Trump Again Leans on the Military." Politico, 1 June 2020,
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First Post
06-06-2025
- Politics
- First Post
How Pakistani military has metastasised like cancer inside society
The public plays along as the military intensifies its anti-India narrative and false propaganda and the Generals prosper at the expense of the economy read more 'Of all the countries I've dealt with, I consider Pakistan to be the most dangerous because of the radicalisation of its society and the availability of nuclear weapons.' —Jim Mattis, former US defence secretary and four-star Marine Corps General, Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead, 2019 General Mattis, who commanded forces in the Persian Gulf War, Afghanistan War and Iraq War, realised three things: First, the Pakistani society is 'radicalised'. Second, Pakistan's political culture has 'an active self-destructive streak'. Third, US military interactions with Pakistan 'could only be transactional' as its military can't be trusted. The three factors are interwoven and describe the current state of Pakistan's mess. A nation born out of hatred and animosity, ruled directly or indirectly by its military, which sponsors terrorism and has radicalised its society, will keep on sinking into the abyss of self-destruction. Decades of hatred and enmity towards India—especially the dream of occupying J&K—systematically nurtured and propagated by the Pakistani military, have turned into a metastatic cancer which has spread deep inside its society. External affairs minister S Jaishankar rightly compared Pakistan to a cancer that has started affecting its society. 'Pakistan is an exception in our neighbourhood in view of its support for cross-border terrorism. That cancer is now consuming its body politic,' he said at the 19th Nani A Palkhivala Memorial Lecture in Mumbai in January. Military supremacy and hatred for India Hatred for India and the Pakistani military's creation of the mirage of a Hindu nation being an existential threat unite its society. Despite orchestrating four coups, ruling directly and indirectly, meddling in politics, robbing the nation of development, wasting funds and foreign loans on weapons and suppressing dissent and protests, the Pakistani military is respected by the population. The military has cemented its image as the saviour of Pakistan's borders and its people, 'threatened by a Hindu India' since its independence. In his book Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military, Husain Haqqani, a Pakistani journalist and former ambassador to the US, writes: 'Very soon after independence, 'Islamic Pakistan' was defining itself through the prism of resistance to 'Hindu India'.' The belief that India 'represented an existential threat to Pakistan led to maintaining a large military, which in turn helped the military assert its dominance in the life of the country'. Within weeks of independence, Haqqani writes, 'Editorials in the Muslim League newspaper, Dawn, called for 'guns rather than butter', urging a bigger and better-equipped army to defend 'the sacred soil' of Pakistan.' The national security apparatus was accorded a special status as protecting nationhood by military means 'took priority over all else'. 'It also meant that political ideas and actions that could be interpreted as diluting Pakistani nationhood were subversive. Demanding ethnic rights or provincial autonomy, seeking friendly ties with India, and advocating a secular Constitution fell under that category of subversion.' Haqqani explains how the military gained prominence. 'The Kashmir dispute as well as the ideological project fuelled rivalry with India, which in turn increased the new country's need for a strong military. The military and the bureaucracy, therefore, became even more crucial players in Pakistan's life than they would have been had the circumstances of the country's birth been different.' Historian Ayesha Jalal, in her book The State of Martial Rule, explains how internal threats to the government were conflated with a defence against India. Thus, the difference between internal and external threats was blurred to the military's advantage. 'So in Pakistan's case, defence against India was in part a defence against internal threats to central authority. This is why a preoccupation with affording the defence establishment—not unusual for a newly created state— assumed obsessive dimensions in the first few years of Pakistan's existence,' she writes. The Pakistani leadership found it 'convenient to perceive all internal political opposition as a threat to the security of the state'. Gradually, the Pakistani society also started perceiving India as a threat and the military as the protector from this imaginary danger. A February Gallup & Gilani Pakistan opinion poll found that only 41 per cent of Pakistanis think that Pakistan should maintain any relationship with India at any level before the Kashmir issue is resolved—35 per cent are against it. Military cons, coerces Pakistanis at the same time Operation Sindoor exposed Pakistani society's fickle-mindedness, the military's hero-worshipping and how the Generals con and coerce the public at the same time. The Pakistani military changed the Black Day in May 2023 to the Day of Righteous Battle in the same month this year in merely four days. The tactics were the same. Pakistani and local terrorists attack J&K, Indian retaliation portrayed as an attack on Pakistan's sovereignty and the military retaliates as the nation's saviour. The scene in Pakistan changed from the massive protests against Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan's arrest, which engulfed major cities, public and private properties and military installations, to celebration and triumph around two years later. In May 2023, the public challenged the military's dominance and power. In May 2025, the public celebrated the military's fake propaganda of supremacy and winning against India as the Generals took advantage of Operation Sindoor and the decades-old Kashmir issue to boost their decreasing popularity. A May 7 Gallup Pakistan survey found 77 per cent of Pakistanis rejecting India's allegation that Pakistan was behind the Pahalgam attack with 55 per cent believing that India's intelligence or government may have orchestrated it. Despite India's no-first-use nuclear policy, 45 per cent of Pakistanis fear that India might launch a first nuclear strike. For Pakistanis, the country's foreign policy with India takes precedence over deep-rooted corruption, serious economic problems and the incapability of successive governments with 64 per cent of the public satisfied with the political leadership's unified stance on tensions with India. Sixty-five per cent express overall satisfaction with the Shehbaz Sharif government's India foreign policy. Another Gallup Pakistan survey, conducted on May 21, found how the military's lies, disinformation and fake propaganda had boosted its image with 96 per cent of the public believing that India was defeated and 97 per cent rating the performance of its armed forces as good or very good. An overwhelming 87 per cent held India responsible for initiating the conflict. Public opinion of the Army improved to 93 per cent compared to 73 per cent of the civilian government. Sharif's party, PML-N, received the highest positive performance rating (65 per cent), followed by PTI (60 per cent) and Pakistan Peoples Party (58 per cent). Around 30 per cent opposed normalisation of ties with India. Not even 50 per cent supported normalising relations with India with trade cooperation receiving the highest support (49 per cent), followed closely by sports (48 per cent), education (44 per cent) and cultural exchanges (40 per cent). Two incidents show how the military cons Pakistanis, who are willing to be conned, in the name of the non-existent Indian threat and increases its iron grip at the same time. First, the government revoked the ban on X, imposed in February 2024, a few hours after India targeted terrorist bases in Pakistan and PoK on May 7. The social media platform was banned on February 17, 2024, without notification on the pretext of threats to national security and Elon Musk's company's refusal to accede to requests and comply with the Removal and Blocking of Unlawful Online Content (Procedure, Oversight and Safeguards) Rules 2021. The actual reason for the ban was the accounts of candidates and parties, especially PTI and the National Democratic Movement, posting about election irregularities. The government admitted after one month that X was banned. Internet and cybersecurity watchdog NetBlocks said that X was banned after 'it was used to draw attention to instances of alleged election fraud'. According to Access Now, a nonprofit that focuses on digital civil rights and reports on global Internet censorship, Pakistan imposed 21 shutdowns in 2024. Once the ban on X was revoked, a deluge of disinformation, like Pakistan shooting down a Su-30MKI and a MiG-29, from Pakistani handles flooded the platform. Pakistanis were part of the disinformation campaign without realising that the ban was removed to whip up anti-India feelings and restore the military's image. The military managed to reunite the nation with hatred against India and false claims of victory as Pakistanis forgot how their economic woes increased, ethnic and political dissent was crushed, dissenters went missing and all these years. Even Khan, who had held Army chief General Syed Asim Munir responsible for his arrest, tweeted: 'The recent escalation between Pakistan and India has once again proven that Pakistanis are a brave, proud, and dignified nation.' Second, as Pakistanis celebrated the military's lies, the spineless Supreme Court, in a 5-2 verdict by the Constitutional Bench, allowed 105 civilians accused in the May 9, 2023, protests to be tried in military courts. The civilians had been convicted under the Pakistan Army Act (PAA), 1952, and the Official Secrets Act, 1923, for espionage, 'interfering with officers of the police or members of the armed forces' and unauthorised use of uniforms. The apex court overturned an earlier ruling against military trials of civilians. Section 2 of PAA permits trials of civilians before military courts when they are accused of 'seducing or attempting to seduce any person subject to this Act from his duty or allegiance to government' or having committed 'in relation to any work of defence…in relation to the military of Pakistan'. Section 59(4) provides for the trial of such civilians under the PAA. In a May report by the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), 'Military Justice in Pakistan: A Glaring Surrender of Human Rights', found that trials of the 105 civilians violated Pakistan's legal obligations under international human rights. 'The ICJ recalls that the use of military courts to try civilians usurps the functions of the ordinary courts and is inconsistent with the principle of independence of the judiciary.' According to Principle 5 of the UN Human Rights Sub-Commission, 'military courts should, in principle, have no jurisdiction to try civilians… The jurisdiction of military courts should be limited to offences of a strictly military nature committed by military personnel. Military courts may try persons treated as military personnel for infractions strictly related to their military status'. Pakistani military's grip on economy The state of Pakistan's economy is as open as the military and the political leadership's sponsorship of terrorism. Since joining the IMF in 1950, Pakistan has been bailed out more than 20 times by the Fund to address fiscal deficits, balance of payments crises and structural reforms. One of the arrangements under which the IMF has bailed out Pakistan is the Extended Fund Facility (EFF), a longer-term arrangement involving reforms to address the economy's structural weaknesses. On May 9, a day before the ceasefire, the IMF granted $1 billion to Pakistan as part of its $7-billion EFF and another $1.3 billion under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility. The amount was a carrot dangled by the US-led IMF before Pakistan to end hostilities, and was vociferously opposed by India. Pakistan's economy was in negative territory twice in the last five years—2020, -0.9 per cent; 2021, 5.8 per cent; 2022, 6.2 per cent; 2023, -0.2 per cent; and 2024, 2.5 per cent In April, the IMF revised Pakistan's GDP growth in 2025 downward to 2.6 per cent from 3 per cent in January and 3.6 per cent in 2026 from 4 per cent citing the 29 per cent tariffs imposed by the Donald Trump administration. Inflation has been a constant problem with higher prices of fruits, vegetables, flour, rice, meat and chicken. According to IMF data, inflation has been in double digits in the last five years except once—2020 (10.7 per cent), 2021 (8.2 per cent), 2022 (12.2 per cent), 2023 (29.2 per cent) and 2024 (23.4 per cent). Per IMF projections, inflation in 2025 will be 5.1 per cent and 7.7 per cent in 2026. The unemployment rate in the last five years was 6.6 per cent in 2020, 6.3 per cent in 2021, 6.2 per cent in 2022, 8.5 per cent in 2023 and 8.3 per cent in 20204. According to the IMF, the unemployment rate in 2025 is projected at 8 per cent and in 2026 at 7.5 per cent. Pakistan's forex reserves are abysmally low compared to India's. In December 2020, it was $20.5 million; December 2021, $23.9 million; December 2022, $10.8 million; December 2023, $12.7 million; and December 2024, $15.9 million. Forex reserves in May were $16.6 million, according to data released by the State Bank of Pakistan. The Pakistani currency has been severely hit by economic mismanagement, ineffective fiscal policies, a massive trade deficit, the lack of structural reforms and investment, low growth rates, high inflation, rising unemployment and political instability. The PKR tanked to an all-time low of 307.10 against the dollar in the first week of September 2023. The currency has been trading above 280. According to a Fitch Ratings projection in April, Pakistan will gradually devalue its currency to avoid likely pressure on the current account. Bloomberg, quoting Krisjanis Krustins, director, Asia Pacific Sovereign Ratings, Fitch, reported, 'The ratings company sees the rupee falling to 285 against the dollar by the end of June and weakening further to 295 by the end of the next fiscal year in 2026.' Pakistan's poverty rate is estimated at 42.4 per cent in the 2025 fiscal year, higher than 40.5 per cent in 2024, according to the World Bank. With a two per cent annual population growth, 1.9 million more people will fall into poverty this year. Even in 2026 and 2027, the rate will be around 40 per cent and 40.8 per cent, respectively. Amid the economic disaster and financial ruin with a national debt of $130 billion, $7.64 billion was allocated for defence in the 2024-25 defence budget. The Generals have been thriving for decades at the expense of Pakistanis by controlling industry, agriculture and the private sector. Under the Defence Housing Authority, the Army owns 12 per cent of the country's land at nominal rates, including urban and agricultural. The military has a massive stake in the government's industrial and commercial policies due to its immense influence on industry, commerce and business. In her book Military Inc. – Inside Pakistan's Military Economy, Pakistani political scientist Ayesha Siddiqa terms the military's 'internal economy' Milbus, military capital used for the personal benefit of its personnel, especially officers. 'Pakistan's military runs a huge commercial empire with an estimated value of billions of dollars.' This capital is 'neither recorded nor a part of the defence budget. Its most significant component is entrepreneurial activities that are not subject to state accountability procedures'. The military is the sole driver of Milbus— and is 'an example of the type of Milbus that intensifies military interest in remaining in power or direct/indirect control of governance'. According to her, Milbus involves: the varied business ventures of four welfare foundations (small businesses such as farms, schools and private security firms and corporate enterprises such as commercial banks and insurance companies, radio and television channels and manufacturing plants) direct institutional military involvement in enterprises such as toll collecting, shopping centres and petrol stations and benefits given to retired personnel, such as state land or business openings. Siddiqa explains how Milbus hurts Pakistan economically, politically and socially. The system 'nurtures' the military's political ambitions by creating deep-rooted vested interests in military dominance. 'The military has nourished the religious right to consolidate military control over the State and society.' Socially, it 'increases inter-ethnic tensions (due to skewed military recruitment policies), reduces the acceptability of the military as an arbiter among political interests and increases the alienation of the underprivileged'. Moreover, building and sustaining the military's influence in power politics come at a cost. 'Evidence shows that military businesses are not run more efficiently than others. Some of the military's larger businesses and subsidiaries have required financial bailout from the government.' Meanwhile, the Army continues with its anti-India narrative despite losing four wars to India—and the public plays along. Anti-India rhetoric, sponsorship of terrorism in J&K and the portrayal of India as an existential threat to Pakistan sustain the military while development has come to a standstill. According to Noam Chomsky, professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the father of modern linguistics, 'Pakistan just cannot survive' if it continues the confrontation with India. In an interview with the Dawn in May 2013, he said, 'Pakistan will never be able to match the Indian militarily and the effort to do so is taking an immense toll on society.' The writer is a freelance journalist with more than two decades of experience and comments primarily on foreign affairs. He tweets as @FightTheBigots. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost's views.
Yahoo
21-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Taiwan's existential battle against Chinese spies
Taiwan faces a growing existential threat from its own people spying for China, experts warn, as the government seeks to toughen measures to stop Beijing's infiltration efforts and deter Taiwanese turncoats. While Beijing and Taipei have been spying on each other for years, experts told AFP that espionage posed a bigger threat to Taiwan due to the risk of a Chinese attack. Taiwan's intelligence agency has said China used "diverse channels and tactics" to infiltrate the island's military, government agencies and pro-China organisations. The main targets were retired and active members of the military, persuaded by money, blackmail or pro-China ideology to steal defence secrets, make vows to surrender to the Chinese military, and set up armed groups to help invading forces. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has long threatened to use force to seize it -- which the Taipei government opposes. While espionage operations were conducted by governments around the world, Jamestown Foundation president Peter Mattis said the threat to Taiwan was far greater. "It's not practiced at this kind of scale, with this kind of malign purpose, and with the ultimate goal being annexation, and as a result, that makes this different," said Mattis, a former CIA counterintelligence analyst. "This is something more fundamental... to the survival of a nation state or a country." The number of people prosecuted in Taiwan for spying for Beijing has risen sharply in recent years, official data show. Taiwan's National Security Bureau said 64 people were prosecuted for Chinese espionage last year, compared with 48 in 2023 and 10 in 2022. In 2024, they included 15 veterans and 28 active service members, with prison sentences reaching as high as 20 years. "In general violations of the National Security Act, the prosecution rate for military personnel is relatively high," said Prosecutor General Hsing Tai-chao, from the Supreme Prosecutors Office. "This is because the military is held to stricter standards due to its duty to safeguard national security and its access to weapons," Hsing told AFP. "This does not mean that ordinary people do not engage in similar activities. The difference is that such actions may not always constitute a criminal offence for ordinary people." - Soldiers and singers - Taiwan and China have a history of political, cultural and educational exchanges due to a shared language, serving up opportunities for Chinese recruiters to cultivate spies. As these exchanges dwindled in recent years due to cross-strait tensions and the Covid-19 pandemic, Beijing has found other ways to infiltrate the island, experts said. China has harnessed criminals, religious temples and online platforms to access Taiwanese retired and active service members, using money and even political propaganda to lure them into spying. Informal banks have offered loans to those in financial difficulty and then wiped their debts in return for information. Others have been recruited through online games. Spies have been asked to share military intelligence, such as the location of bases and stockpiles, or set up armed groups. Taiwan's intelligence agency said China has used "gangsters to recruit retired servicemembers to organise their former military comrades in establishing 'sniper teams' and to plot sniper missions against Taiwan's military units and foreign embassies". Singers, social media influencers and politicians also have been coerced into doing Beijing's bidding, spreading disinformation, expressing pro-China views or obtaining intel, said Puma Shen, a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmaker. China's spy network was "growing and growing", said Shen, who has studied Chinese influence operations and was last year sanctioned by Beijing over alleged "separatism". "They're trying to weaken, not just our defence, but the whole democratic system," he said. - Raising awareness - President Lai Ching-te, who also belongs to the DPP, last week branded China a "foreign hostile force", as he proposed measures to combat Chinese espionage and infiltration. Among them were ensuring the transparency of cross-strait exchanges involving elected officials and reinstating military trials during peacetime -- a sensitive issue in Taiwan where martial law was imposed for nearly 40 years. Recent surveys show most Taiwanese people are not in favour of unification with China. But more needs to be done to raise public awareness about the threat Chinese espionage posed to Taiwan, said Jakub Janda of the think tank European Values Center for Security Policy in Taipei. "If you betray your country, this needs to become completely unacceptable," said Janda, who advocates for tougher penalties. "If you have this moodin the society, then it's much harder for Chinese intelligence to actually recruit people." aw-amj/sn/sco
